Being-in-Alien

The Trinity of Bodies in Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017)

WithAdnan Mahmutović, Denise Ask Nunes

The Alien films (1979, 1986, 1992, 1997) have inspired a substantial body of scholarship in gender studies, which has examined feminine monsters and motherhood. However, with the introduction of the prequels,
Prometheus (2012) and
Alien: Covenant (2017), interest has shifted from the monster to its creation and the question of “true” origins. This chapter utilizes the phenomenology of Martin Heidegger to show how the Alien prequels characterize humans as defined by a concern with their being (Dasein) and a relation to Being (Sein). Ridley Scott’s prequels ask the audience to rethink the relationship between beings and Being through the image of bodily interdependence. The drive to create, change, and metamorphose continuously positions the human among abject bodies that help define us, yet in relation to which we ourselves can be perceived as the abject that must be rejected. The Alien itself loses importance as the story of the metamorphosing Alien-man-machine trinity emerges.